Lessons from a radical 20-year experiment and a quiet triumph of public policy.
Despite the progress of the last quarter-century, the United States still incarcerates many more young people than most countries in Europe or Asia do. More than half of those behind bars are there for nonviolent offenses, and racial disparities are endemic: Black youth are almost five times as likely to be in custody as their white peers. Though almost 1,800 juvenile facilities have closed in the past 25 years, the remaining ones are often violent places, marked by sexual abuse, solitary confinement and woefully inadequate schooling.